Financial hardships can make receiving a higher education so much more difficult. When you factor in tuition, room and board, and other necessities you can rack up a lot of money. If we were to decrease the outside costs and eliminate things like insanely expensive mandatory text books, more students would be successful. Furthermore, making textbooks free would completely change the classroom. How many times have students not had the required text and been left behind to suffer just because of lack of funds?

Goldrick-Rab received harsh backlash for criticizing the institution she works at. While that may be deemed unprofessional I think that people should have the right to speak up about the wrong-doings that are happening in front of their face. I think that because of all the hate she received from this, others who are in similar situations will be more fearful of speaking their mind.

It would be interesting to see a more recent study, MySpace is definitely a dying SN.

I think if you were to collect the same data today, it would be a lot different. It seems to me that most students do not really use most social network sites as a form of communication, but as a form of expressing themselves. Social network sites have developed into an online diary with idea sharing. I also believe that the percentage of students utilizing SNs would be higher.

Cell phones, tablets, and laptops are not allowed in most high schools and middle schools which is crippling. There may be one or two assignments a year that involve gathering information online; but otherwise students are forced to use a dated form of learning. Limiting students seems almost silly when you consider the vast amount of information that they have sitting in their back-pockets which they are not allowed to use.

Often times social media is perceived as brain sucker. While it does have some negative effects it is also responsible for a lot of online learning. News is tweeted, images are created and posted, forums are available for discussion; however the common reputation is that social media is bad based on solely on the amount of time younger people spend on it.

Distinguishing meaning trough voice inflections and tone can not be done so easily in the form of written word as opposed to orally. There are certain things you can do one, but you cannot do with the other, even though both can require the use of words.

Georgia draws the world as she is affected by it, and as she relates to it. Her personal experiences shape her view of not only herself but her parents. But because we do not know Georgia we have the task of interpreting her drawing as we see fit.

In school we often take the creativity out of the classroom. I think that allowing students to use more than just their regurgitation skills is vital. Most of the time the focus is on comprehension and summaries, but the process of creation is often left out. Design is such an important part of presentation.

I did not properly learn how to analyze information until my sophomore year of college. Up until then I was simply paraphrasing and summarizing information. K-12 should incorporate more challenging of ways of understanding text.

Retaining the information you read and cross-checking with various other sources gives you a better understanding of the information you are handling while also giving you the ability to check reliability and meaningfulness.

I've noticed that while I keep multiple tabs open with loads of information, my friends get frustrated with the amount of information and are constantly opening and closing 2-3 tabs to fit their needs. I find it much easier to have a lot of tabs open at once and bounce around the information as opposed to constantly searching and replacing information in just two tabs. When I navigate tabs I save time and do less work.

Successful students are not summarizing the information they have read, but rather synthesizing the information they have acquired in order to make it fit their needs; thus making them more successful in a school setting.

As an anthropology major, it is important to understand how such a small difference has lead to a cultural revolution and adaptation that has allowed us to evolve into completely different beings than which we started. Small differences really do matter, and I think this is a great example of that.

I'm not too surprised by this statistic, though I do find it interesting that I have never noticed it. A lot of the memes and funny videos I watched include satires of urban pop culture and lifestyles.

The curriculum in today's schooling fail to prepare students for a world after graduation. Many, if not all the skills mentioned here were not touched on in my high school or middle school.

Social media has always been a part of the lives of most teens today making it seem more natural and comfortable. Adults, however find social media to be disconcerting because its a new part of communication that is being introduced into their lives.

Because technology has become such a commanding force in the way we communicate, people can fight online and as the example put forth by the author says; people can even stalk you online.